Council official says Airbnb has done ‘untold damage’ to Mayo rental stock

A senior Mayo County Council official has said that the short-term letting website, Airbnb, has done ‘untold damage’ to Mayo’s rental housing stock

Tom Gilligan, Mayo County Council’s Director of Services for Housing, said it was ‘morally wrong’ for people to let entire properties on Airbnb.

According to the website Inside Airbnb, there are 1,134 entire properties in Mayo listed on Airbnb. This represents 76.2 per cent of the 1,489 listings on the website, which allows property owners to rent a room or an entire property on a short-term basis. In contrast, there were 39 Mayo properties listed for long-term letting on Daft.ie on Wednesday, December 11.

“Personally I have no problem if people want to rent a room on the Airbnb. Where I do have a problem and I do think it’s morally wrong, is where you see entire properties going up on Airbnb,” Mr Gilligan told a meeting of Mayo County Council’s Housing Special Policy Committee.

Legislation has been proposed that would make it mandatory for property owners who let their properties on Airbnb for 21 nights annually to register with Fáilte Ireland.

Last year, a report by Oxford Economics found that Airbnb was worth €21 million to Mayo’s economy in 2022 and supported over 300 jobs. The report found that 92 per cent of Airbnb stays in Mayo were booked in entire houses or apartments. Domestic tourists represented 45 percent of Airbnb guests in the county.

The Westport Local Electoral Area has the largest number of Airbnb properties of any local electoral area in Mayo with 547, including 425 entire properties. There are 353 Airbnb listings in Belmullet, including 281 entire properties. Ballina, meanwhile, has 173, including 129 entire properties, followed by Castlebar with 164 and 115 entire properties.

There are 152 Airbnb properties in Claremorris, including 104 entire properties while Swinford has 100 and 80 entire properties.

Cllr Harry Barrett branded Airbnb as ‘an absolute scourge’ and ‘a vampire sucking supply dry’ in Mayo.

The Independent councillor also called for a ‘full gambit’ of measures to penalise property owners with vacant and derelict houses.

“It’s a moral disgrace that there’s properties in this town [Castlebar] left vacant for years and years while these people suffer and our kids in their 20s and 30s can’t find a place to live in this town,” said Cllr Barrett.